Help me deal with paternal grandparents mainly MIL?

My sister who babysat 4 out of the five days was thrilled that I would stop working. She said she was glad so I could spend time with my kids and bond with my son now that he was more active.

I didn’t mention it but I live exactly 15 minutes away from my MIL.

Your mil is acting nuts.

You are incredibly kind and forgiving to allow her to have a relationship with your child when she dislikes you and your daughter so much

Keep the door open, but do not bend over for her. She can see the child, just not on her own terms.

Quite honestly, and I’m sure I’ll be challenged on it, but as your son ages I’d be worried about her filling his head that his sister isn’t his sister. Only “half”. Ive sadly seen this happen many many times

You need marital therapy with your dh.
Does your dh realize he was parentified?

Has he ever told her no? Given consequences for her tantrums nd boundary stomps?

So your MIL shows favouritism - very unhealthy and damaging to your kids. Huge red flag

Your MIL does everything for her kids, including the adults - why doesn't she teach them to be independent functional individuals in society? Another red flag

Your MIL doesn't like you - your kids will notice the tension between you. Adult problems stay with the adults, do not involve the kids.

Your Mil has a grandmother/aka mother fantasy in her head and your stopping work messed it up. She wants her second mommy experience no matter what.

Your sister's reaction to your decision to stop working - healthy

You do not owe your MIL anything. You are the mom. Not her.

Have all communication go through your dh. She wants a visit? She calls your dh, you and dh talk about it and he communicates your decision.

You and your dh decide - 2 yes/no method.
Example: MIL wants to give us a night of and babysit (be ready it is coming) - you both say yes for this to happen or nothing!

The fact that your dh does not want to have more kids as he had to raise his siblings must be addressed in therapy

It was not fair for him to be put in that position and must learn to heal

It is also not fair for you to limit the number of kids you and your dh want to have due to untreated childhood trauma

I had a daughter when I married my single, childless husband. Had my mother in law acted like yours I think I would have been far less generous than you have been.

She doesn't want to share time with both your children? Then she can forget about it.

When I answered your original comment I felt sorry for your mother in law. That's gone right out of the window!

Just let her get on with it. If she wants to cut her nose off to spite her face then let her.

It's cruel and hurtful to your daughter to be excluded like this.

It sounds to me as if the issues are between your DH and your MiL. They need to be addressed.

You should not have to separate your children. Your DD will notice this and wonder why granny doesn't take her.
Stick it out - you are home all day to be with your children. This is your time. Enjoy it.

I don't realy see how you can ask for advice when you don't clearly state the problem in the first case. This drip-feeding of information is not helpful.

I agree with trisher. You ask advice but don’t give the whole story then keep adding bits. Advice then becomes useless as we don’t know the whole story and offer help only on the bit we do know.
All I will say is now that you have two children, they must be brought up together as siblings and should be loved equally. Your sister doesn’t really come into the equation in my opinion. Brothers and sisters are not the same as grandparents and they can go off and live their lives and have their own children. Grandparents often (and should) love their grandchildren very much. I am less certain now where your MIL is coming from but whilst you cannot expect her to care as much for your daughter as her grandson, she should never make your daughter feel unwelcome or unwanted as that is plain cruel. I still don’t see why you and your husband can’t take both children to his mums sometimes. Perhaps with young children herself she can’t always leave home. If you live that close to each other it shouldn’t be a problem.

How many children and when is one of those issues that should be throughly talked through and agreed on before you marry.

Whatever the cause of your DH's decision, you should have found it out and talked it through.

Veigrace, you have my sympathies. I too have an 8 month old son. First and only child and a mil who is pressuring dh to allow her to care for him instead of nursery. But for the problems you are facing, i am resisting.
I think its unfair for grans to say “when u needed her she was there, now you are denying her”. This is the very reason DILs are cautious and hesitant to actively involve mils as it is thrown back in your face. They develop ownership and you develop guilt. It is irrelevant if u have a daughter or is this is your last child. It is still your child and you have the right to spend time with him. My advice is do whats best for you. Reading your post and the responses from grans that have taken the view that your MIL has a right to have access to your son has helped me make my decision. Goodluck OP. You have my sympathies. Stand your ground. Visit mil if you can and leave your door open to them. Xxx

Also i would like to point out that your MIL has ONLY looked after your son for 16 days in that period of 4 months. That does NOT give her the right to demand access to your son. For the poster that said a baby connects to his carer and attempt to measure that to the connection with a mother... by carer do you mean 16 days in comparison to the 9 months OP carried her son, or the evenings and nights and weekends she spent with him or the first 12 weeks. Even the smell of OPs clothes will be soothing to the baby. More so than the grandma. I agree grandmas have a special place in a childs life. They love and spoil them. But if this grandma continues this way well the child will grow to resent her for making his mothers life difficult even if op tries to shield him from it all.

MaternityLeave please find any other alternative but the MIL route they start to feel like the baby is theirs and ask you to care for them as if you were them. My MIL tells me what she would like me to feed him, how she would like me to bath him and so on ever since she cared for him. Your post helped me so much to confirm my stands as well and I thank you for that. I agree with everything you said including that she developed ownership while I developed guilt.

I am very thankful for everyone’s posts it helped me so much to realize my problem can be solved through my husband since he has never said no to her. He will have to learn to do so now just like I would deal with my family if they were overstepping their boundaries.

I didn’t mean to feed the information slowly I was just trying to summarize it as much as possible don’t mean to upset anyone here.

It was never my intent for my MIL to have to make an effort to be in my daughter’s life.

I will attempt a talk with my in-laws in the next few days and post the outcome as I would have liked to find out when people resolve their issues or concerns with everyone’s help on the forum.

Not at all sure what the point of this thread is anymore.

Not enough information, then resistance to suggestions.

Talk to your husband talk to your inlaws, stop looking for validation for your perspective.

Good luck

NamsNanny
Your post here is extremely unkind to op.
OP I am glad my words helped you. I think the difficulty is the guilt you carry because you are putting your child's need and your own needs before others especially when it is someone elderly. Helping should come with no strings attached. If this was the case, i would not be as hesitant as i am with my childcare arrangements. I am glad some mils share this viewpoint, i am guessing those are the mils that have good relationships with dils.

Namsnanny the OP has explained why she inadvertently ended up drip feeding. I dont think she is resistant to suggestions as such ....just that sugfestions have made her realise that other information is relevant in the problem!

velgrace good luck. Glad that you now realise the importance of your husband's behaviour in this problem. Hope you can work through this together with your husband and let us know the outcomes.

Compromise! Ask MiL to care for your son for an afternoon whilst you go get your hair cut/ naiks done/ meet a pal for coffee/ go shopping ..whatever. Just do not make it a regular thing..occassional and maybe twice one week nothing the next! Once things become regular they become expected & that can lead to problems! Take control but be kind. She loves her grandchild so don't be mean! You may need her care one day.

Velgrave

Don't have a talk with your in-laws. What is the point/goal for it? For them to see where your logic comes from? So she realizes you do not want to hurt her by you spending time with your son?

If you talk to them, they will think you are being unreasonable with your pov.
Cry cry cry from your MIL as she loves her baby and you do not want to share. She will be scared to lose the "bond" she has with your son and how important are grandparents and extended family in the child's life. How a baby is always happy and therefore healthier to receive all the love the baby can get.
Your dh will sit down there like a deer in the headlights and will even attempt to negotiate a visitation schedule or for you to drop the baby every x weeks for x hours so everybody is happy.

This talk with further damage the relationship with your ils. If that is your goal, go nuclear, this talk will achieve it.

Concentrate on getting your dh and you in the same page.
Go to marital therapy. The mommy's boy you married needs to be a husband and father, not a son.

Too much faff and bickering.